


The Passage of the Marshes

by hippydeath



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-21
Updated: 2005-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-28 19:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippydeath/pseuds/hippydeath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tristan wasn't always the greatest scout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Passage of the Marshes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the fic_inspiration challenge on LJ. Trying to put marshes and knights together is not easy, so I just got them lost. Set 5 or 6 years before they're due for discharge.

The sun was rising finally, though no birdcalls heralded the coming of morning here. From a night filled with eerie wails and jarring barks, the dawn was strangely silent.  
With no trees blocking the view, Tristan could almost appreciate the beauty of the lightening sky, and was certainly grateful for the renewed light. It offered fewer chances of being caught unawares and having their throats slit.  
A movement to his left signalled Lancelot’s rising, and a few minutes later, Galahad’s.  
The other two looked awful, darkened eyes showing the lack of sleep they’d had contrasted with the burnt skin from the blazing sun they endured during the day. They were caked in mud and any inch of bare skin bore the marks of bushes and trees, as well as the biting insects that plagued this area. He reasoned that he couldn’t look much better, although he cared less; he was used to looking and feeling like this and so bore the discomfort in silence.

It had been three days since they’d been separated from the rest of their patrol in relatively unknown territory and two days since they’d had to abandon their exhausted mounts. They couldn’t be far from the nearest Roman outpost, but in both directions lay open marshland for miles, and behind them were numerous Woad hunting groups, all eager to lessen the number of Roman oppressors on their lands.

The hours were seemingly endless as the sun rose higher and they continued their slow progress. So far, none of the Woads tracking them had tried to attack, and to Tristan’s knowledge, they hadn’t been forced from their original path in anyway.  
Not long after the sun had reached its zenith, Galahad fell to his knees, head in his hands.  
“I can’t go on like this.” He announced, as Lancelot pulled Tristan to a stop, both of them glaring.  
“Boy, you can’t stop here,” Tristan snapped as he turned back round to carry on, ignoring Lancelot’s pull on his ruined tunic.  
“I’m not a boy anymore,” Galahad snarled back, fixing Tristan’s back with a fierce stare, which the scout apparently was aware of, as he turned round.  
“If you won’t get back up and carry on, then you’re a foolish child.”  
“And you’re such a man for wearing yourself to death I suppose?”  
“No, but at least I don’t complain at the slightest hardship or run crying to Gawain whenever you can’t deal with something.”  
For Galahad, that was the final insult, and he threw himself at Tristan, only to be intercepted by Lancelot, who, with a stern expression on his face pushed them both to arms length.  
“Stop this.”  
Both of them turned their glares on him, but he ignored them. “Tristan, scout ahead, make sure there aren’t any raiding parties in front of us, and you,” he said, his finger poking Galahads chest, “stay with me.”  
Tristan stalked off without a word, and was soon lost in the haze and steam rising from the marsh, not even a sound coming from him as he picked his way through the pools and small islands of relatively dry land, while Lancelot stared at Galahad for a moment.  
“What was that about?” he asked eventually.  
Galahad shrugged. “I’m not a boy anymore. I’m sixteen summers, he could at least treat me as an adult.” He started walking again, slowly picking his way through the marsh with as much grace as Tristan.  
“So it’s not true?” Lancelot hurried after him; sweat pouring down his back and face.  
“No.” Galahad carried on walking but stopped talking to think. “But he thinks that I want Gawain to speak for me.”  
Lancelot mulled this over for a while, and they walked in silence, both aware of Tristan somewhere in the distance, but seeing neither him nor a sign of him.  
“Then why does he?”  
“Why do you let Arthur make your choices?” Galahad countered back.  
“Because I trusted him when I was younger and more foolish, and now it’s gone on too long that neither of us will stop it.” Lancelot nodded as he spoke, and Galahad smiled wryly.  
“Exactly, and Tristan doesn’t understand that, because he’s always been the one speaking for others.” And they left it at that, walking in silence, painfully aware of Tristan in front of them, and the Woads surrounding them.

Dusk came and had almost given way to night by the time Tristan finally returned, more arrows missing from his quiver and a rabbit slung across his shoulder.  
“I bloody well hope at least some of those arrows went into Woads, and that you didn’t just miss a lot of rabbits.” Galahad sniped, trying to get a rise out of the scout, who deftly ignored the jibes; setting about skinning the rabbit as Galahad reluctantly started a small fire.  
They were all wary about having the fire lit, but none of them had eaten anything but dried trail rations for days, and the need for food finally outweighed their need for security.  
As they ate, all three were alert, watching the shadows for any signs of the Woads; flinching when animals moved and night birds called.  
Eventually though, feeling better fed than they had in several days, even Tristan was dozing. Galahad was asleep, leant against Lancelot, who, deep in sleep, mumbled pleas to a lover not present.  
For a long time, nothing but the wildlife stirred. Foxes barked in the distance, and a few deer passed over the marshland in search of fresher grazing.  
Without a sound to give him warning, Tristan had a knife drawn, eyes scanning the horizon, struggling to make out any shapes in the weak light of the new moon.  
Harsh whispers roused the other two, Lancelot groping for his swords, Galahad quickly nocking an arrow into his bow.  
“Where?” Lancelot called, alert in moments and stamping out the embers of the fire, not that such an action was relevant anymore.  
A flicker of light off an un-dulled blade was his answer, and he guessed that one of the Woad groups had, at some point during the day overtaken them, and blocked their passage forwards, leaving them faced with the choice of fighting or going back, inevitably into an ambush.  
The light flickered again; this time swiftly followed by the thud of an arrow finding it’s mark.  
If Lancelot truly believed in hell, he would have said that it had all broken lose at that moment. The Woads launched themselves at the three knights, who found themselves facing fourteen men, all armed with knives, but thankfully no bows.  
Galahad picked off three more before the range between him and the Woads became too close for his bow to be effective, and he dropped it, pulling a knife from his boot. He could hear Tristan’s sword working its way through anyone foolish enough to get close to him, while Lancelot’s two blades crashed against his opponents.  
Another had fallen to his knife when Lancelot shouted for them to run. Never the less, he waited to hear the other two go before he followed, bow once more in hand and a close eye watching for anyone following them.  
They crashed their way through the boggy ground, all of them stumbling over clumps of solid ground and half decayed tree stumps.  
“I don’t think they’re following us anymore,” Galahad panted, still at the rear of the group, slowing to a stop.  
The other two slowed, eventually stopping to catch their breath.  
“Tell me we’re still going in the right direction.” Lancelot snapped, breathing heavily.  
No one said a word. Tristan stared at the slowly lightening sky while Galahad checked what few remaining arrows he had left and prodded at a wound on his thigh.  
“We keep heading north.” Was Tristan’s final reply.  
Galahad and Lancelot exchange weary glances but followed. Personal disagreements aside, Tristan knew what he was doing, and if he said they needed to head north, that was what they’d do.

It seemed that the marshland was growing dense as they travelled, not speaking and growing weary. The sun was rising to their left, and off in the distance, the sounds of a settlement could be heard.  
Coming to a halt after an hour of walking a wordless agreement was reached, and Tristan abandoned the other two to scout ahead.

Without the other two to slow him down, Tristan moved quickly across the soft ground, painfully aware of the aches in his muscles, and strangely unnerved by the fact that he wasn’t being watched.  
The noise from the settlement was getting louder, people going about their morning business; the sun was up although it was still early, and it was comforting, even to one so in tune with nature as he was to know that there were other people living and working nearby.  
The ground had also started to firm up, meaning that his boots made a loud squelching noise with each step.  
Slowly creeping closer until the walls of the settlement, actually a small Roman garrison, were in view, Tristan stopped and watched for a while, observing what was going on, determining whether it was safe or not. A rider arrived at the gates from the road and was admitted, several women came and went and carrion birds hovered round, reminding him in a strange way of his hawk, deserted back at the fort.  
On a whim he decided that the garrison would be safe enough to approach and went to find the others.

Galahad was lounging on a tree stump, while Lancelot kept a lookout for any Woads that had followed them and for Tristan’s return.  
“What exactly were they planning on teaching us anyway?” he asked, Galahad staring at him as he paced.  
“Does it really matter now?” Galahad replied, not really caring.  
“True,”  
“He’s still treating me like a boy.” Galahad whined, changing the topic of conversation and gazing up at the sky, then at Lancelot.  
“If you keep whining, so will I,” Lancelot rolled his eyes. “You have to tell Gawain to stop fighting your battles for you, then he’ll stop treating you like that.”  
Galahad snorted, “Why don’t you follow your own advice?”  
Lancelot just glared and raised an eyebrow. “Do as I say, not as I do, boy.” He replied with a smirk.  
Galahad sighed and shrugged and once more left the conversation where it was, going back to staring up at the sky.  
Not long after, Tristan returned.

“What is it?” Lancelot wanted to know as soon as Tristan was within speaking range.  
“A small garrison.” He replied, sitting down.  
Galahad was on his feet in an instant, “Then why are we still sitting around here?” he cast a reproachful glare at Tristan, fidgeting.  
Lancelot thought for a moment, watching Galahad and Tristan. “No.” was his response.  
“What?”  
“We don’t know who is in command there.” He reasoned, looking off into the distance in the direction of the garrison.  
“It has to be the one that we were headed for.” Tristan was fairly certain that it was where they had been headed for before they’d been separated from the group.  
Galahad nodded, “Then the others could still be there, and even if they aren’t, I want to be clean again, and we can get fresh horses and go back to the fort.”  
Lancelot stewed this over. True enough, the likely hood was that this was the garrison that they’d been headed to for training, and that Arthur would probably still be there. He would have carried on without them if he hadn’t been able to find them.  
“Alright, but Galahad,” the younger knight looked up, “you will let me deal with their commander.”  
Galahad looked insulted, but nodded, and they were on their way again.

The were greeted by a miserable looking soldier at the gate, and it took much of Lancelot’s patience to persuade him that they were Sarmatian knights in the service of Rome and not scruffy mercenaries looking for trouble inside the walls. He refused to say whether Artorius Castus was present, and they were sent to clean up, the nervous and distrustful looks following them everywhere they went.

Finally clean of most of the mud and grime and with their wounds dressed, they met with the garrisons commander. A lean looking man who looked as tough he would rather be somewhere without the threat of constant attack, and who listened with only half an ear to their tale.  
“Has our commander been here at all?” Lancelot asked for the second time. “Sir?” he added, not wishing to cause insult when that would only cause more hold ups.  
“What, Artorius Castus come here? Heavens above, no. He sent word that he’d lost three of his men and that he would be looking for them rather than engaging in the training.” He took a mouthful of wine and shook his head, laughing at some private joke.  
“Then will you give us horses so that we can get back to our own garrison.” Lancelot tilted his head to one side as he asked, grating his teeth together, and behind him, Galahad yawned.  
“Are you sure you won’t rest firs-“ he was about to say, with an eye on Galahad who was moodily looking round the room.  
“No, thank you. Just the horses and directions” Lancelot growled, leaving the commander, whose name Lancelot never bothered to remember, cowering.  
“Of course.” He stammered out, before calling his aide and ordering them to be shown to the stables.

Another hour and they were back on horseback, clean and fed, though not rested, with food to last the return trip, along with directions and the assurance that if they pushed their horses, they would be back at the wall by nightfall.

“How did we get so lost so close to the wall,” Galahad grumbled, looking in the opposite direction to Tristan, but aiming it as an insult never the less.  
Lancelot shot him a warning glare, but Tristan ignored both of them, pushing his horse faster, away from the other two.

“No more marshes. Ever,” Galahad laughed, looking up at the wall.  
Lancelot nodded, and even Tristan managed a grunt of affirmation.  
“But we can say that we survived all that Britain had to throw at us, as well as the Woads. One up on Bors,” Lancelot sounded like he was trying to brag, and, even though they laughed, it was a dead laugh. They were tired and wanted nothing more than to get back to their beds.  
Tristan’s attention was drawn from his two companions by a movement above him; his hawk, still here, swooping down to land on a swiftly outstretched arm.

Home. Over the marshes and through irritating Roman bureaucracy, they were home. Arthur had, when he’d been called back from his search, berated all three of them for managing to get lost, and then congratulated them for not only surviving, but taking out the Woad hunting party and managing to get themselves back as quickly as they had, before sending them away to clean themselves up and rest.

Lancelot eventually found himself back in Arthur’s quarters where he was forced; at length to recount the entire escapade, while in the tavern, Tristan entertained Bors and Dagonet with a similar tale, and in the barracks, Galahad swore to Gawain that that damned passage over the marshes was the last time he would ever listen to Tristan’s directions.


End file.
